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4 months ago
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The statue of Jewish Holocaust victim Anne Frank has been defaced with 'Gaza' graffiti, with Dutch politicians condemning the act.
The Anne Frank memorial in Merwedeplein, Amsterdam, located near the Jewish diarist's first home in the Netherlands, was vandalized with red paint spelling out 'Gaza'.
Amsterdam councilor Stijn Nijssen took to X, formelry Twitter, to condemn the act of vandalism, saying: 'It is truly shameful that someone would think to draw attention to the Palestinian cause by smearing an image of Anne Frank, an international symbol of the Holocaust'.
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema called the act an 'incredible disgrace' on Instagram.
'This young girl, who was so brutally murdered by the Nazis at the age of 25, reminds us and our city every day of humanity and gentleness in the most difficult circumstances', she said.
Statue of Holocaust victim Anne Frank in Amsterdam has been defaced with 'Gaza' graffiti, which has drawn in condemnation from Dutch politicians
Pictured: Anne Frank, who went into hiding from the Nazis in concealed rooms behind a bookcase in Amsterdam, but was then captured by the Nazis and taken to a concentration camp, where she later died. Her statue in the Dutch capital was defaced on Tuesday. Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema has called the act an 'incredible disgrace'
'How can you get it in your heart to make her memory so violent? Whoever it was, shame on you! No Palestinian has been helped by smearing her precious statue', Halsema added.
She also called on potential witnesses to report the incident.
The bronze smaller-than-life statue, set on a high red granite rectangular base, honors Anne Frank and also commemorates her 13,000 Jewish neighbors who died in the Holocaust.
The statue was designed by Jet Schepp and unveiled in July 2009.
The defacing of Anne Franks's statue comes amid mounting tensions surrounding the war between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas.
The act of vandalism in the Dutch capital is reminiscent of when activists defaced London-born Jewish singer Amy Winehouse's statue in Camden Town by sticking a Palestinian flag sticker over the late musician's Star of David necklace.
Anne Frank was a German-born Jewish girl known for keeping a diary documenting her life in hiding amid Nazi persecution during Hitler's occupation of the Netherlands.
Anne Frank, her older sister and parents live in an apartment near Merwede square, where the statue is located, after moving to the Dutch capital from Nazi Germany in 1938.
However, the Frank family were forced to go into hiding four years later when the persecution of Jews escalated. They lived in concealed rooms behind a bookcase in the building where Anne's father, Otto Frank, worked.
The family were discovered by the Gestapo in 1944 and sent to concentration camps. Anne and her sister, Margot, were transferred from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they died. Otto was the only Holocaust survivor in the Frank family.
Anne Frank was a German Jew who emigrated with her family to the Netherlands during the Nazi era. Separated from the rest of her family, she and her sister died of typhoid fever in the concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. Image shows a 12-year old Anne doing her homework in 1941
Otto Frank, the father of the late Anne Frank is pictured showing Queen Juliana of the Netherlands the hiding place of the Frank family during World War II. The Queen visited Anna Frank House in Amsterdam at the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of Anne Frank's birth
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